Ben Shapiro shouldn’t deserve to be legitimized or even recognized. However, his recent statements regarding net neutrality have been sent to me by more than a few people. I’ve even see some say, “If Ben says something then it’s right.” I understand that many are too lazy to think for themselves so they’d rather have a hateful weasel do it for them. However, this is bigger than any of that. We don’t need bullshit like this spreading around online. The internet is too important.

There are a few counter arguments here I’d like to make against Ben Shapiro:

One argument that Ben makes is that online companies like Netflix are aggressively supporting this because it is beneficial to them. While that isn’t wrong, regulations that are pro-business in itself was never the issue. Net Neutrality is a policy where public interests and the interests on online businesses happen to coincide. When a cable company lobbies against net neutrality, they are asking that public interests be forsaken for serving their bottom line. If your business model requires that your company becomes more of a detriment to society, than it deserves to DIAF.

Also, Ben’s analogy about your internet connection being compared to the water company is an incorrect one. While bandwidth (how much data is going through a connection at a single point in time, not the simple transmission of information) is a finite resource, he misunderstands how net neutrality would effect the internet. You should be charged for water, but a more accurate analogy would be that you should also be allowed to do what you want with your water. The water company should not be allowed to charge you more to wash your kit car, as opposed to a car from an auto manufacturer that outspends hobbyists.

While I agree that more competition would help, those that argue for it never present ideas on how to start an ISP, nor is the barrier for entry into the market ever discussed. Starting an ISP is not like having a yard sale or owning a restaurant. That is simply because it is cost prohibitive (you need to be independently wealthy), and no ISP can grow or sustain itself without the blessing of a government (petitioning for right-of-way to build, etc). This is of course if it is even legal to establish new ones in the first place.

Also in the video, Ben pretty much makes us aware that he knows nothing about TCP/IP when he argues for packaged services so people who use little internet ‘save money’. You can only tell what they are using their service for if you use deep packet inspection. Without it, all the web traffic is not all that distinguishable, as they are merely bits over a wire. There is no technical justification for ‘packaged’ internet. I can have a similar impact on the network as a video streamer simply by doing a bunch of large FTP transfers to a file server.

Logan, I know you don’t believe that this dude shouldn’t be legitimized, but it is important that these anti-net neutrality arguments be challenged, as they will be brought into public debate in the future. The more discussion people have on this issue, the better.